What Makes This Book So Great
by Jo Walton · first published 2014
3mentions
2recommended by
2HN commenters
2015–2018first – last mentioned
100% recommend
"As any reader of Jo Walton's Among Others might guess, Walton is both an inveterate reader of SF and fantasy, and a chronic re-reader of books. In 2008, then-new science-fiction mega-site Tor.com asked Walton to blog regularly about her re-reading--about all kinds of older fantasy and SF, ranging from acknowledged classics, to guilty pleasures, to forgotten oddities and gems. These posts have consistently been among the most popular features of Tor.com. Now this volumes presents a selection of the best of them, ranging from short essays to long reassessments of some of the field's most ambiti
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Jo Walton's What Makes This Book So Great along with about half a dozen of the books it mentions (it's a collection of blog posts on books she's rereading) which I hadn't previously read. All of the previously unread ones I've now finally read…
on “Ask HN: What are you reading?” ↗I just read both of those earlier this year, based partially on recommendations on HN. Speaking of book recommendations, try almost any book reviewed in Jo Walton's collection of essays: *What Makes This Book So Great?. I read and bought about the first half-dozen or so that I hadn't already read, and there was only one that I didn't enjoy thoroughly, and more because it was too much of an emotional downdraft than…
on “The Best Books I Read in 2015” ↗…version with enough footnotes to help me understand that underneath a funny and beautiful book is an attempt to use satire to say something serious about the regime that Bulgakov lived under. Part of what makes this book so great is how it is effective at this goal but also just fantastic literature. I'm a heavy reader but bad at reviews. All I can say is read this one. One of the best books I've ever read and that was clear…
on “Life Got You Down? Time to Read The Master and Margarita” ↗